La Vie d'Eponine Thénardier
by Sohara von Salienta
Summary: Eponine's story, begun from the turning point in her life: she meets Marius Pontmercy.
1. Monsieur Marius

_This is an Eponine Thénardier ficlet; Les Misérables__ from her point of view, starting with the moment she meets Marius, and continuing through her death.  I won't have a chance to update often, but please read and review.  The dialogue and most of the blocking is taken straight from Victor Hugo's unabridged edition of Les Misérables, except for the scenes that I make up, of course.  Eponine's thoughts, of course, are mine, but many of her memories are not.  I have tried to make her thoughts read in almost the same way that her words do; please comment on that as well if it needs improvement, and I will try.  Otherwise—bienvenu à Eponine Thénardier!_

If only we had money.  If only we had a home.  If only my father weren't such a—a thief, a scoundrel, a crook, a villain.  If only he cared more about us than about his filthy money.  If only—oh, if only.  I wouldn't be scavenging around Paris with letters to important people, rich people, letters signed with false names and bearing false predicaments.  Letters that beg and plead for money, all written by my father, and all one of our last resources.  

We are poor.  Very poor.  We are only still in this hovel of an _appartement_ because our neighbor paid our rent six months ago, and he has not even seen us.  I am glad he has not.  He might despise us for our filth.  Though it was not always like this; once we owned an inn, a good one, and I grew up there.  My father could not pay the bills, though, and we moved here.  And now—now we resort to this.  Begging.  It is not even respectable, but who now cares about respectable?  A girl with the cracked, distasteful, ruined voice of an old drunkard, nothing but a torn chemise, ragged skirt, dirty coat, and string for clothing can hardly speak of wishing for respectability.  We fight for survival, all of us in the dregs of Paris.

Hesitation to knock at someone's door is natural, I suppose.  But I have to knock, I must, or I will go hungry again.  Hunger can propel even the most sluggish into action; if teeth tear and ravage your insides, there is nothing one will not do.  I am now delivering one of those letters to our neighbor, hoping he will have a full wallet and a giving hand.  His name is Marius, that I know.  I do not know his last name, but I can well call him Monsieur Marius.

I knock.  Once.  Twice.  Has he heard me?  Is he at home?  It is only seven in the morning; he may be asleep.  Or he may be out; I do not know.

"Come in."

He is in!  Thank God, thank God.  And, thank God, there is a greater possibility that I will eat today.

"What do you want, Madame Bougon?"

He hasn't looked up, so of course he wouldn't know that I'm not that dragoness of a landlady.  His hair is black, and curly, and his clothes are neat but worn.  This room is so tidy and clean…so much more so than our place, with no floor and dirt encrusted everywhere.  He's studying something…there are papers and books on a table in front of him.  Oh! he has books!  How long it has been since I have read a book…

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur—"  I don't know what else to say.  I suppose I surprised him, because he spun towards me quickly.

I don't know what to think.  I don't know if I can think.  Something's quite, quite wrong, and I don't know how to describe it.  I must be growing sick, for in a minute I will have to lean against the wall to support myself.  Am I dying?  I feel more like living with every breath I take.  It may be hunger; that would explain the dizziness.

"What do you wish, mademoiselle?"

The letter!  I had forgotten the one in my hand.  I could hardly feel it, even though my fingers are less cold than they were.

"Here is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius."  I almost wish I didn't have to give it to him; it's so degrading.  But I must, and hopefully he will understand.

I hand him the letter; he opens it; reads.  What is he thinking?  He stared at me so oddly; I wonder what he thinks of me.  Street gamin, I suppose.  Torn skirt, shivering all over, dirty brat.  But I'm not, I'm not!  No, not in this room, I'm not.  I am someone who matters, someone important!  I tell you, I am!  Someone educated…someone!  A person, a being, a _human_ being.

Look!  His furniture is neat, unscratched, though inexpensive.  His clothes are hanging there, behind a curtain on the wall; they are good quality, and not torn or dirty.  He must be somewhat poor as well, though he knows how to grow poor.  His toilet articles are so neatly arranged, and the bureau is too big for the few bottles.  But he is rich! richer than we are…

"Ah, you have a mirror!"

I have not seen myself in months, really.  But I am not so hideous, not when I smile, am I?  Look, there…with that hair swept up, I could be a young, rich lady of Paris.  Oh, what songs we sang, when I was a small girl…

_"Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,_

_Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours…"_

On the table, over there!  Look!

"Ah! books!"

I am not just a gutter rat, see!  I can prove it now.  He has to see that I am not something dirty, something distasteful—

"I can read, I can."  That book over there, the one on top—anything to prove it to him.  Flipping the pages, I find a paragraph.

"—General Bauduin received the order to take five battalions of his brigade and carry the chateau of Hougomont, which is in the middle of the plain of Waterloo—Ah, Waterloo!  I know that.  It is a battle in old times.  My father was there; my father served in the armies."  He _is_ good for something, even if it was done in the past.  Marius—Monsieur Marius, see, I am not a common rogue!  "We are jolly good Bonapartists at home, that we are.  Against English, Waterloo is."

This is madness.  I feel lost in a wave of screaming insanity that is rolling me over and over, and I cannot stop talking.  Something about him has made me lose my footing, and I cannot find it again.

"And I can write, too!"  There is a pen on the table, there, and paper.  "Would you like to see?  Here, I am going to write a word to show."

The paper is blank; it is all right.  _Marius_, his name is, and it is almost musical.  Not so is my chosen phrase—_The Cognes are here._  The police, that is what the Cognes are.  The gendarmes.  And they cannot pincer us—catch us, I mean.  I will not speak that dialect of the streets in this room, I won't.

"There are no mistakes in spelling.  You can look.  We have received an education, my sister and I.  We have not always been what we are.  We were not made—"

Oh, he must be tired of you, shut your mouth, shut your mouth!—No!  I don't care; I am a Thernardier, and we are damned if we care what others think!

"Bah!"  I cry, and it sounds futile in the silence that follows.

I don't know what I'm saying, singing…something of no moment.  Something of the theatre, and of Gavroche, my brother.  I feel even sicker than before, and better than I have ever been at the same time.  I am flying, on high, boundless wings, and I don't know why!

No—I might know why.  He is looking at me so strangely, and I can feel the bones in my jaw shake.

"Do you know, Monsieur Marius," I say almost boldly, "that you are a very pretty boy?"

I've made him blush.  What does that mean?  Does—oh, _could_ it mean anything?  Oh, what wouldn't I give if it meant something to him—and why I think this, I cannot tell.  I—I want him to like me…as a soft, soothing, gentle creature of beauty and grace, whose words could string a harp in his mind…

Any bit of despair I have ever had is now forgotten.  I feel almost angelic, and powerful, so powerful, as if I could play God and raise the earth from its foundations.  My hand lifts onto his shoulder, and I won't be rebuffed; I know.

"You pay no attention to me, but I know you, Monsieur Marius.  I meet you here on the stairs, and then I see you visiting a man named Father Mabeuf, who lives out by Austerlitz, sometimes, when I am walking that way."  My voice has grown softer; he has lovely, lovely dark hair…"That becomes you very well, your tangled hair."

My stomach is twisting, and I feel giddy…giddy and weightless.  I have never touched someone before and felt as if I were close to crying, but I feel so now—one more moment like this, and I _will_ cry.

He turns away; my hand falls, but the shock is only there for a moment.  In a beautiful, cold voice, he holds a paper packet in his hands.  I recognize that—I have seen it before…

"Mademoiselle, I have here a packet, which is yours, I think.  Permit me to return it to you."

Oh; he's found it!  Azelma and I are all right!  "We have looked everywhere!"  I exclaim.  What letter is it, I wonder—not the one by Madame Balizard; that one has a wax mark on the cover.

"To the beneficent gentleman of the church Saint Jacques du Haut Pas.  Here! this is for the old fellow who goes to mass.  And this too is the hour.  I am going to carry it to him."  I have not eaten for two days, not counting this morning.  But that gentleman—bah, he will be generous!  "He will give us something perhaps for breakfast."

"Sometimes I go away at night,"  I confide to him.  "Sometimes I do not come back. Before coming to this place, the other winter, we lived under the arches of the bridges.  We hugged close to each other so as not to freeze.  My little sister cried:  How chilly the water is!  When I thought of drowning myself, I said:  No, it is too cold.  I go all alone when I want to.  I sleep in the ditches sometimes."

I want him to know me.  I want him to see what has happened to me.  And I want to seem a lovely damsel in distress, one that needs rescuing.  Is this why I babble on like this?  Oh, bah, forget questions!  I am past questioning what I say.

"Do you know, at night, when I walk on the boulevards, I see the trees like gibbets, I see all the great black houses like the towers of Notre Dame, I imagine that the white walls are the river, I say to myself:  Here, there is water there!  The stars are like illumination lamps, one would say that they had smoke, and that the wind blows them out.  I am confused, as if I had horses breathing in my ear; though it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning wheels.  I don't know what.  I think that somebody is throwing stones at me, I run without knowing it, it is a whirl, all a whirl."

I am not only talking of those freezing nights under the Pont Neuf and on the Rue des Chataillles and inside the sewers, which my father knows as if they were his children.  He knows them better than he knows us; it is degrading, it is helpless.  It is true, though.  My father is a brigand, a villain, a _voleur_.

"When one has not eaten, it is very queer."

Can he see through what I have said?  Can he possibly know that my words was meant for him?  He is brilliant, if he does not, it is my stupidity, not his.

Oh, _merde__!_  Of course he could not understand my rigmarole.  He hands me a shining five-franc piece, as if I were only here for _sous_.  Good God, does it seem like that to him?—but it does, of course; I was at first only here for money.  Damn my father and his begging ways!

"Good," I say weakly, taking the piece from him, "there is some sunshine!  Five francs! a shiner! a monarch! in this _piolle__!_  it is _chenâtre__!_  You are a good _mion__._  I give you my _palpitant__._  Bravo for the _fanandels__!  _Two days of _pivois__!_ and of _viandemuche__! _and of_ frictomar_! we shall _pitancer__ chenuement! _and _bonne__ mouise!"_

Of course he understands none of that.  He is a good gentleman, not one to understand the mystery of _argot—_our Parisian slang.  I will leave now, my father will shout.  I pull up that torn chemise about my shoulders, I sweep him a curtsy, and I wave.  A fine lady could do no better, could she?  In my state, a queen could do no better.  Queens do not have their worlds tumble about their heads, of course, they stay the way they were made to be.  But this is the life of a Parisian _gamine_, a street urchin, and her worlds are permitted to crumble.  What the _bon Dieu_ must be thinking of!

"Good morning, monsieur.  It is all the same.  I am going to find my old man."

I snatch a piece of bread—a crust of bread, a dry bit of waste—from his bureau, and I bite it—good.  It hurts my teeth, I have to wince, but that is my due; I have wasted his time, made him talk to me, made an imbecile of myself.  "That is good! it is hard! it breaks my teeth!"

I leave the room, bewildered, confused, floating on a cloud and knocked into the cellar.  As soon as the door is closed, my legs shake and give way, and I fall to the floor, sitting.  

My God, I do not know what has happened to me in that room, but I would give whatever I could simply for him to look at me again.

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_The random French thrown in here and there in the dialogue is argot; French slang.  It is not translated in the book, and I therefore will not translate it here.  It's like translating "bling-bling" into French; it can't be done and sounds stupid if one tries.  The argot is not meant to be understood; it underlines the low class of the people that speak it.  Other French that I will throw in, like _appartement_, means the obvious—in this case, "apartment", but if it does not, I will translate down here.  _

_"Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,_

_Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours…"_

_This is actually Fantine's song; she sings this when she is sick in the hospital.  Eponine hums an unnamed song when she stands in front of the mirror; I thought this would be a nice touch.  Translated, it means:_

_"Violets are blue, roses are red,_

_Violets are blue, I love my loves…"_

_"bon Dieu" is both an exclamation and a description, and it usually comes with a "le" (the) in front of it—it means "good God".  In this case:  "what the good God must be thinking of!"_

_That's all till the next chapter, in which Eponine reflects on this chapter and subsequently sees a familiar apparition from her childhood in her appartement.  Au revoir!_


	2. The Lark

_Thank you so much for the reviews and the constructive criticism.  I do my best!  Now, on to more Eponine…picking up from the place we left off at, with la Mademoiselle just having exited her neighbor's room and sunk to the floor…_

Our room is despicable.  I disliked it before for its poverty, but now I hate it because of its dirtiness.  And it is our home! imagine!  A room with no floor-bricks or floorboards, with dirt for a floor, with rags strewn about haphazardly, with cracks in the walls! cracks that are seeping with dirt and mildew.  But, oh, it has a fireplace, so of course it is worth forty francs a year!  A wretched fireplace, one filled with broken bottles and boards, rags, ashes, that piece of refuse once called a birdcage, a kettle…but nevertheless a fireplace.  I have never understood how those two or three embers can keep burning so stubbornly, but they must receive that talent from my father.

My father.  He is the crouching one sitting at the desk inside that door, writing another of his odious begging letters.  Father! ha! he calls himself a father!  He would tear me into pieces with his own hands if he would gain money by it.  He has only fathered me; he has not raised, loved, cherished, or cared for me.  _Maman_ is a different story.  She loves us.  Azelma and I, we are her darlings, her angels.  She has always wanted the best for us; when we owned the inn, she worked that wretched thing of a child that was our maidservant to the bone so that we would be served in a manner reminiscent of the rich.  Subservience.

The neighbors called that girl The Lark, but she was not birdlike.  She was a hideous child, with large eyes, a spindly body—she was always dirty and disgusting—she attempted to play with our things one night! and I saw, and she was punished.  And then, that day, a rich Monsieur came and took her away after he gave her an enormous doll, the one that had been the envy of every girl in the town.  I heard _Maman_ and Papa talking about it late one night, that the man in the yellow coat had paid for her.  Paid 1500 francs for her! for the Lark!  The wretched creature of a child, no doubt born illegally of a mother of the streets.

Bah, but she is gone now, out of my life, and I will not see her again.  But _he_…I will see him again, and soon!  I must, I have to; I will suffocate if I cannot.  Even now I think over that exchange and I want to fall down onto the bed and cry, cry, cry my heart to pieces.  I want to climb onto the roof of this hovel and scream for joy; I want to dive into the Seine and hug every molecule of water to my body.  I have never, never, felt this alive.

They talk meaninglessly to each other; that much I can gather, but I am not trying to listen.  I remember the rushing in my ears and the weakness in my knees in our neighbor's room, and from time to time my heart wants to burst open.  I cannot think of anything but him now.  He—_he—He!_  Marius, Marius, a god, an angel, a noble man, a beautiful boy, a—Oh, everything! he is everything that makes me want to stay in this world.  Now I could not think of drowning myself or letting myself be captured by the _gendarmes_ without revulsion.  I could not...I _cannot_ think…

I hug my knees to my chest, still sitting just outside Monsieur Marius' room, let my head fall, and am surrounded by a wall of hair.  Despicable, horrid hair! dirty, disgusting, unwashed!  Unbrushed, uncared for…if he had thrown his chair at me instead of letting me babble on about nothing, it would have been more just.

My hand falls, and something crackles.  The letter! the one Monsieur Marius gave back to me.  The old gentleman must still be at mass; I will have to run if I am to catch him.  I throw on my ragged dress lying beside me and leave, pattering out of the house.  I had to take off the dress before begging for money; it does not do to appear rich.  Not that this gown is rich, oh, no! but it is better than simply a chemise.

These shoes squeak, they are too large, they are men's shoes.  I stumble more than once, and those brats of _gamins_ laugh at me.  Damn them, have they nothing else to live for?  But I cannot help but wear the shoes; they will not permit my entry into a church if I do not wear shoes.

 There—the church Saint Jacques du Haut Pas.  Mass is not over yet; I can still hand him the letter.  Walking as quietly as possible, I step inside.  He is at his usual place, the pew far to the right, and in the back.  He cannot be mistaken; his hair is snowy white, as if he were one hundred and twenty years of age, although he cannot be over fifty.

"Monsieur," I whisper.  I curtsey; he is a well-mannered gentleman.  He starts, turns around, and I hand him the letter, which is wet and dripping from the snow I have fallen into.  If only the ink has not run!

He finishes reading and looks up at me.  "Where do you live, my child?" he asks.

"Monsieur, I will show you," I offer.  It is easier that way.

He shakes his head, definitely no.  Is this my fault?

"No, give me your address; my daughter has some purchases to make, I am going to take a carriage and I will get to your house as soon as you do."

I nod; this is all right as well.  I tell him the address; he is surprised, why?  And he hesitates…

"It is all the same, I will go."

"It is the last door at the end of the hall on the right, Monsieur."

He nods again.  I blow out a breath, curtsey once more, and dash out of the church.  Mass is ending—and there he goes, with a girl in a black velvet cloak hanging onto his arm.  I cannot see her face, but I can see the number of the fiacre they take—four hundred and forty.  Now—run—to home!

I reach our street and halt—the same fiacre is turning the corner.  I run harder, harder, and burst into our garret.  Success!

"He is coming!" I shout, triumphantly.  And my father is surprised; what, did he not think I could manage?

"Who?" he asks.

"The gentleman!"

He frowns.  "The philanthropist?"

"Yes."

"Of the church of Saint Jacques?"

"Yes."  Oh, I am excited; he may give us money beyond our wildest dreams!  To buy his daughter a velvet cloak he _must_ be rich!

"That old man?"

"Yes."

"He is going to come?"

"He is behind me."

"You are sure?"

"I am sure."  Time-wastrel, that is what he is; does he not realize our future is at stake?

"There, true, he is coming?"

I explain further.  "He is coming in a fiacre."

"In a fiacre."  He thinks.  "It is Rothschild?"

He rises and spouts off a storm of words—how can I be sure, how did I get here before him if he took a fiacre—all ridiculous questions, all!  I tell him what passed at the church, and he is content, content for him.  

"Good, you are a clever girl!" he praises.  But what is his praise worth to me?—what is anything worth to me now, besides the glimpse of our neighbor?

"A clever girl, that may be," I answer resolutely—and rather rudely, but I do not care.  I will not waste this moment. "But I tell you that I shall never put on these shoes again, and that I will not do it, for health first, and then for decency's sake.  I know nothing more provoking than soles that squeak and go ghee, ghee, ghee, all along the street.  I would rather go barefoot."  I would, I would!  I want to see him again, and it would not do to have him see me in horrid, old, poor-house shoes.  Better that he should pity barefoot poverty than to be disgusted by scrounging poverty.

But he is not angry, surprisingly.  "You are right," he says, almost gently, "but they would not let you go into the churches; the poor must have shoes.  People do not go to God's house barefooted."  He is bitter, that is funny!  He has no right to be so; he is the one acting as a leech to all rich men he comes across.  

"And you are sure, then, that he is coming?"

Does he understand _nothing_, or does he _trust_ nothing?  Some of both, I believe.  "He is at my heels."

Look, there—that familiar lack of humanity and presence of voracity in his eyes.  What is he thinking?

He springs to his feet.  Do sixth repetitions stir him into a frenzy?  "Wife!" he cries, "you hear.  Here is the philanthropist.  Put out the fire."

_Put out the fire?_  Has he gone completely mad?  The little fire we have keeps us alive and warms us at least an inkling from the snows and wind that rage outside.  _Maman_ does not move.  She understands less than I do.

My father ignores her, takes up the water-pitcher, and strews its contents onto the few glowing bits of fire we have left.  Then he turns to me.

"You! unbottom the chair!"

I still don't understand what he is thinking.  He has paid good money for these furnishings to Madame Bougon; does he not care that he will have to replace this chair if it is ruined?

He scoffs, tears the chair towards him, and kicks his leg through it, then turns to me again.

"Is it cold?"

"Very cold," I tell him, wondering.  "It snows."

He whirls around to Azelma and bellows.  "Quick! off the bed, good-for-nothing! will you never do anything? break a pane of glass!"

Azelma is worse than I am; I am almost amused, but she is terrified.  She is trembling, probably both with fear and cold.  

"Break a pane of glass!" he shouts again, and when she does nothing—"Do you hear me?  I tell you to break a pane!"

Azelma has never been one to disobey.  She would do his slightest commands without thinking of anything else; stupid, she is.  And look—now!  She has broken the window, and her hand is bleeding.

"Dear,"_ Maman _asks, patiently, "what is it you want me to do?"

"Get into bed," he orders.  He is like a ship's captain, or a king—a tyrant, wishing everything to happen without needing to explain or apologize.  And, there—see the results?  She obeys, crawls into bed.

Azelma begins to howl.  Has it taken her this long to realize that she has been hurt?  A splinter of glass, a large one, is still sticking into her fist, and a large arrow-shaped mark of blood is running down her arm.

_Maman_ rises to her defense, of course.  Azelma is her _petite chèrie_.  "You see now! what stupid things you are doing? breaking your glass, she has cut herself!"

"So much the better!" he says contentedly.  "I knew she would."

"How! so much the better?" my mother asks, indignant.

He shrugs her off, looks down at his woman's chemise that he wears instead of a shirt, and tears off a strip of cloth.  Hurriedly, he wraps it around Azelma's hand and wrist.  He is satisfied. Satisfied? what! mad, rather!

The wind seeps into the room, crawls up my skirt, into my feet, into my eyes.  Like needles, like horribly hot, piercing needles.  I begin to comprehend this, but it is a bit of a chance to take! he is hoping that the gentleman will be stirred to more pity through this.

I put my hand on his arm.  "Feel how cold I am."

"Pshaw!" he answers contemptuously.  "I am a good deal colder than that."

I concur with my mother—he always has everything better than anyone else, even pain.  He is pacing across the room—asking what if the man does not come? he will have ruined our room for nothing, cut Azelma, watered our fire.  He should have thought of that before!

"The brute may have forgotten the address!" he hisses.  "I will bet that the old fool—"

There is a slight, soft rap at the door, and my father breaks off his mutterings.  He is glad, he smiles, and he opens the door with bows and grins comically contrasting to the attitude of scorn he held just four seconds ago.

"Come in, monsieur! deign to come in, my noble benefactor, as well as your charming young lady."

She—that is the same girl that followed him out of the church.  I did not see her face then.  But she is beautiful, she is stunning, she is hideously rich!  Look at her, her brown and gold hair, her perfect face, her small hands.  No—that face.  It is familiar, and yet I recognize it.  I have been thinking of her only today, is that not strange?  I will never forget that habit she has of staring at someone as if she knows all about them and pities them.  She looks at Azelma that same way now.  It is Cosette! the Lark! the despicable, dirty girl that was our servant!  What is she doing here, and in velvets, and in silks?  And we—we in rags, in every proof of poverty!  How dare she look at us like that; how dare she?  If I were given the chance, I would be better than she—I would be able to learn! to turn heads!—to…

Bah, but I will never be given that chance.  Earlier, possibly, when I was still a child and pretty, and my voice was that of a normal girl.  I sound like an old man when I speak!  An old, bastard drunkard.  And she—she sings, no doubt, and when she speaks, musical instruments stop for fear they would disturb her.  Bah! ridiculous!

Musical instruments—I remember.  That voice was what I longed for in our neighbor's—Marius'—room…Oh, _mon__ Dieu_, do not let him meet her!  If there is any mercy to be hoped for on this earth_, do not let him see her!_

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****

_That's all for this chapter; now for translations:_

_Gendarmes—the police, the Cognes; this was in the last chapter as well_

_Fiacre—the 1830s version of a taxicab; a hansom, drawn by horses_

_Petite chèrie—little darling_

_Mon Dieu—my God_

_In the next chapter, Cosette and her father leave; her father with the intention of returning, and Marius asks something of Eponine. Coming soon!_

_To all my reviewers, thank you very, very much!_

_La Pamplemousse—I try!  Thank you!  Yes…Eponine is a rough, poor girl of the streets; and __Paris__ was not kind to paupers!_

_Mlle. Verity le Virago—Will try to improve.  Thanks for the comment!  Yes, there is a profusion of bad Eppie fics…sigh…and she's such an amazing character…_

_tattered__ sparrow—Merci, merci, madame!  Yes, I don't see much reason for changing the original script, really, since Victor Hugo is a bloody genius…(What are you talking about; I'm not obsessed! ::nods vigorously and untruthfully::)_

_Andi—yep, that was a really, really stupid mistake.  Thanks for catching it; I've corrected it now.  ::smacks self::  And I'm supposed to be a four-year French student!  Eh, well; this is what they mean by brain farts, I suppose._

_Elyse3—::grins happily::  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  If Eponine were so bloody perfect, would Marius have remained in love with Cosette?  I ask you!  Honestly!  ::tsks::_

_Winter-Lady—I feel v. honored.  Thank you!_


	3. He loves her, I think

_Oui, oui, le troisième chapitre__is a leetle bit long in coming, but here it is, finally.  And a large thank-you to everyone for the wonderful reviews; I do indeed try to make Éponine as close to Victor Hugo as I can, and I seriously detest the fanfiction canon Éponine, what with her perfect personality and perfect looks and just a teensy bit of a grimy face…_no!!_  Just…no.  Definitely not.  And I absolutely love Cosette; I was enamored of the Cosette-Marius affair the very first time that I read the book…and she is definitely not a ditzy little idiot.  And Marius is not as fickle as people like to make him out to be…of course, he is quickly growing to be my favorite character for reasons I will not mention here...::snaps back into the reality of the fanfiction world::  Anyway.  On with the show!_

I hate her.  I hate her.  I do not mean this in the fickle way of rich, upper-class brats who lightly tap their men on the chests and giggle, "Oh, do I hate you!"—I despise that girl, with all of the ferocity that I did not know existed in myself.  Look at her! look at her, then you will see!  She—Cosette, that _child_, coming into our hovel and petting Azelma like a cat!  A very kitten, and that is all Azelma is to her.  

Good! of course she is! sweet, naturally! kind! how could she not be?  Generous! yes, generous!  What a vice of nature this is, to show us the society belle that once was under our care as a servant, and to have her look at us, now, when the cleanest clothes we own have not been washed since and before we acquired them.

She is carrying something in her pocket.  A handkerchief—and a prayer book.  A handkerchief is wrapped around the book, and I can only see the gold cross.  But the handkerchief—what excellent care is taken of it!  Something is embroidered on it in white thread, possibly her initials, possibly a flower.  There is not a speck of dirt anywhere on her clothing, not even on the hem of her dress.  How does she do that? to not spatter dirt over her silk dress when dirt is all that exists in this room?  Does she float, like an angel, a saint, a sprite?  She is more like a sprite than an angel, she is.  Her face looks partly wild, as if her mother were not really a human, but a tree-nymph, or a wind-spirit, and as if she would look more natural with twigs in mussed hair.

_Je te déteste.  __Je__ te déteste! _I want to spit on her dress, on her hat; to throw ashes into her face; I want to steal her beauty for myself, for me, for him!  What would be in store for me if my features were hers, if my dress were as unsoiled as hers, if my voice were as uncracked as hers!  _He—_what would he think of me then?  Monsieur Marius—Marius, Marius, wouldst thou bless the sound my voice made while speaking thy name?  Oh, _could_ you ever, _ever_—

His five francs are in my pocket.  I have not given them to my father yet.  The coin feels lovely, smooth, and assured…if I could afford it, I would wear it on a chain around my neck.  He gave this to me, he did, when he saw how poor I was.  He pitied me, but I did not disgust him so much that he threw me out of his place.  My heart is beating again, faster, faster, and it is not from hunger, I know; it has never thumped this hard before when I was hungry.  I am not dying; everything I see is brighter than before, and I am almost glad to lean against the dirt-caked wall that separates our hovel from his room.  On the other side, there, he lives!  He lives, he breathes, he writes, he dreams; just think! a few feet away from me, there is life!  Life, and of the most promising and sacred kind; _his_ life.

I can hardly see anymore; am I crying?  I have not done that in years! what is wrong with me?  Wiping the water from my eyes, I hide further behind the door; it would not do to have her see me; after all, she must feel that I want to burst from holding the disgust of her presence inside me.

I do not think that this is all a dislike of Cosette…no, not of Cosette herself.  I detest the way she looks down at us, but then she does not sweep around with pride embedded into her corset.  I think…I think that I envy her of what she has, of what I will never have.  Envy or hate? which is dominant?  Envy, I think.  She has not done anything to make me hate her, simply dislike her—but I have to clench my teeth and fists to keep from lashing out at her and clawing up her beautiful, wild face.  Envy! I am envious of our former servant.  Can one sink any lower?

I am pushed aside with the door as they exit, and as she passes, I look at her, squarely.  She stares back at me, only for a moment.  There is a slight frown on her face, and a sad, pitying look in her face.  I throw my head back, glare, and she sweeps out of the door, turning to see her father.  I was not friendly, I know, nor did I want to be.  She would be drawn and quartered if her life depended on me and my intervention!

There was a gentle look in her eyes that I know was not mirrored in mine.  A gamine! gentle?  Bah! whoever heard of such a thing!  But it, too, I want; I want the ability to look untouched by crime and filth and beggary.  I do not think that she remembers staying with us.  Hah! all to the better. 

What would he think, truly, if I tried to see him again?  Would he see a friend in me, a messenger,—who?  I—I want to see him again, to speak to him.  I can thank him, can I not, for the bread?  I have not thanked him yet; he must think that terribly rude.  Yes; I will thank him.

I wait a few moments, until I can hear my father's footsteps on the far end of the hallway, and I slip out of the room.  _Maman_ has not noticed; she is stroking Azelma's head in the same way that Cosette had done, just moments earlier, though I do not think that she knows it.  Azelma will likely have a large scar on her hand, there, thanks to my father.  I slip into the alcove across from his door.  There is no light under his door; he must be out.  I can wait for him.

My father is the first to step by; of course.  I settle down, for I may be here for a long time.  It is time for him to eat, or he is with his friends; no doubt he has many.

But no!—there he comes!  He is out of breath, and the darkness hides his face, but he walks slowly, resentfully.  What has happened? is something wrong?  No! do not let that be; give misfortune to me, I can bear it!  I have borne it for years; there is nothing left to ruin.  But his back—it should not be bent under cares, it is straight, handsome—and his dark hair has snow in it, that I can see—it glows in the gloom of this hall.  Never again will I wish for a light here, not when I know that I can see him unobserved.

I leap to my feet just as he enters his room, and I arrest the door as it falls closed.  He cannot help but notice that; his hand is on the door.  To think! he touched this wood just moments before I did; it is not yet cold.

"What is it?" his voice asks through the door, "who is there?"

Oh! to think that those few syllables could send a shiver into my stomach and eyes!  I open the door, but do not step inside; he has not asked me, after all.

"Is it you?" he asks, his voice different.  How different? is he surprised? intrigued? annoyed?  No, no! not that last!  He cannot, cannot be annoyed—no, something is wrong.  He is agitated; something must have happened to him.   Sad.  He is sad, yes, and dimly bitter.

"Come now, will you answer?  What is it you want of me?"

He is not really cruel; of course not.  He has perhaps had an argument, or he has fallen short of money.  I raise my eyes to his; can he see that they long to sparkle?

"Monsieur Marius, you look sad.  What is the matter with you?"

He is puzzled.  No, taken aback.  "With me?"

"Yes, you."

"There is nothing the matter with me," he says quietly.  But I know better; if his words can make me docile, then his eyes can reveal his mind to me.  They can, I know they can.

"Yes!" I insist.

"No."

"I tell you there is!"  He will tell me, he must—he will throw this burden away if I can have anything at all to do with it.

"Let me be quiet!" he exclaims finally, trying to close the door.

No.  I am quiet, gentle—is Éponine Thénardier trying to be _gentle_?  The Apocalypse is at hand, Paris!  I will never admit it anywhere else, but I am trying to imitate the Lark—Cosette.  She is all that I could hope to be, and it can never hurt me to aspire towards my ideals, can it?

"Stop," I say, "you are wrong.  Though you may not be rich, you were good this morning.  Be so again now.  You gave me something to eat, tell me now what ails you.  You are troubled at something, that is plain.  I do not want you to be troubled.  What must be done for that?  Can I serve you in anything?"

Listen to me, I sound as though I am offering to take the place of a servant.  But it is only just, is it not?  Cosette was our servant; now I am playing Cosette and begging to be a servant.  

"Let me," I plead.  "I do not ask your secrets, you need not tell them to me, but yet I may be useful.  I can certainly help you, since I help my father.  When it is necessary to carry letters, go into houses, inquire from door to door, find out an address, follow somebody, I do it.  Now, you can certainly tell me what is the matter with you.  I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes for somebody to speak to the persons is enough to understand things, and it is all arranged.  Make use of me."

His eyes grow softer, and he steps closer.  "Listen," he says kindly.

"Oh! yes, talk softly to me!" I cry, joyfully, "I like that better."

"Well," he resumes, "you brought this old gentleman here with his daughter."

"Yes."  I nod.  He is all-seeing; all-knowing, almost like a fairy-tale genie!

"Do you know their address?" he asks.

"No."  Oh, how I wish I did; then he might smile again.

"Find it for me," he requests.

Find the address—_Oh!_  No, no, this cannot, cannot be!  God—good God, why are you so merciless?  No—if he knows her, then—then—!

"Is that what you want?" I say, lowly, as a servant would.

"Yes," he answers, repeating what I said before.  When I spoke, it was with the musicality of a rusty nail scraping itself on a stone brick; his voice defines perfection.

"Do you know them?"  Please, please, _please_ make him say no!

"No."

Thank God, thank God—oh, _God_, why does he want to know the address, then?

"That is to say," I repent, "you do not know her, but you want to know her."

Her—her—_her!  _She, always she!  Cosette, the Lark, the servant, the brat, the rich society belle—all that I have thought of her condenses into one word:  her!  I cannot cry now, I must not, but how I long to!  I long to throw myself from a roof in this mess of despair; what, 'Ponine, did you honestly think that a good, upright, wonderful man could have wanted _anything_ to do with _you?_  Bah! you sicken me!

"Well, can you do it?" he wants to know.  Of course I can! but could I bring myself to?  Could I possibly bring myself to show her door to him, to stand across a street, behind a gas lamp-post, while he is shown into their house?

I do not care.  I do not care.  Now, I do not care about anything anymore.  It will make him happy.  Yes, happy!  I want him to be; he was sad a moment ago, and I wanted to make him glad again.  I will do so; I will! if it kills me, I will.

"You shall have the beautiful young lady's address," I answer, with some bitterness, true—_would_ that I were that _beautiful young lady!_

He is uneasy; I have made him so, I believe.  I am sorry, truly, I am!

"Well, no matter! the address of the father and daughter.  Their address, yes!"

"What will you give me?" I ask.  And what will he say?—a kind word, directed solely at me, would bring me more joy than the crown jewels of France.

"Anything you wish!"

I inhale slowly; it is painful to breathe.  "Anything I wish?"

"Yes," he confirms.  His hand is shaking in the same way that my chest is; does he love her, then?  Do _I_ love _him?_  No! don't answer that.  You do not matter; only he does, and he loves her, I think.  I—yes, he loves her.  Look at his eyes, at the eager, sweet expression in them; yes, he loves her.  Yes! _he__ loves her!_

"You shall have the address," I say.  And I will break into tears at any moment; I look down quickly and leave the room, closing the door behind me.  For the second time that day I sink to the floor outside his room, but now I am truly crying, crying silently, but nonetheless desperately.  Desperate; that is a good word!  I am the desperate messenger of my God, the one desperate for him, for his voice, for his care—for his love.  Yes, for his love!  He loves her, I think—but I…

My thoughts come to mind slowly now, as if they were weighted down by those heavy sacks of coal hoisted over one's back that break one's shoulders—

I love him, I know.

**_Read?  Review!_**__

_Translations—this is the only one, I think:_

_Je te déteste—__I hate you_

_So much for this chapter, then; the next one will vaguely feature the attack on Monsieur Leblanc and much of Éponine and her reflections and thoughts.  Until then!_

_And, again, a blissful thank you to all of my reviewers:_

_Sweet775—oui, oui, la petite pauvre__.  I almost feel guilty about intending to make her suffer even more later…_

_~*MusicalTwinSiStar1*~—Thank you very, very much!  Yes, Éponine's character is wonderfully interesting…and I will try to write more as quickly as I can…which may be somewhat off, as I'm in the middle of IB finals…still, will try!_

_Tattered sparrow—Really?  ::re-reads parts of the story::  Oh.  Very, very good.  I keep thinking "God, this is too unnatural; would Hugo write any character like this?"  You have given me hope!_

_Kang Xiu—Thank you very, very much.  I am quite glad that this little ficlet has helped you relate to her…after all, I believe that was my subconscious intention when I started it.  My conscious…well, my conscious intention included the thought:  "There are no bloody Victor Hugo Éponines out there, so I'm going to make one, dadblast it!"_

_Elyse3—Ohhh, yess…::twitches::  The ditzy Cosette.  May I be able to leave the room before puking on the computer desk.  Cosette is not a bloody ditz, thank you very much!  Just…urgh._

_Winter-Lady—I am currently grinning like a right idiot, thanks to your review.  Fanks!_

_Mlle. Verity le Virago—The "right idiot" grin is not going away, and it is ALL YOUR FAULT!!  Hee.  My kitty, I think, is somewhat unnerved by it.  Thank you very much._


	4. I love him

_Thank you, again, horrendously much for the wonderful reviews.  And my pathetic little reason for not writing in so long is that I have senior-year finals.  However, I am profiting by the fact that IB finals are now over to finish painting this huge arachnid-spider-webby thing for an art exhibit at the theatre, to continue writing _Lily Evans and the Elf-Nymph Necklace_, and to, once in a while, be drawn back to this ficlet…well, it is always in an intense fit of depression that I return to this ficlet, but that is beside the point.  However.  Without further babbling, here is the continuation._

_I seem to have this thing with the word "however".  However, I fully intend to try to fix that._

_Oh, holy Merlin, I'm at it again…_

_I interrupt this vaguely point-filled author's note to squeak happily in quite a bit of Enjolras—er, enjoyment.  I got into The Scarlet Pimpernel!!!  Whee!!!  HA!!!  Mainstage musical, summer musical, three-week-long musical, awesome costumes that I will be helping to sew…::dashes off and hugs Marius::  YAY!!  (This may be my exception to the rule that I write this story whenever I'm severely depressed…)_

I could not see clearly when I stood up to return to our hovel.  My face was cleaner than it had been in weeks, I had cried so much.  I love him.  I love him, I love him, I love him.  I whispered those words to myself and new tears spilled out.  I cry when I think of him, and I can think of nothing else.

Before going back inside, I wiped my face on my chemise, begriming myself with Paris.  My father would have the story out of me if I walked back into the room with a tear-streaked, reddened face, and I would rather die before telling him anything.  There are times when I despise him, times when I admire him, times when I am disgusted by him, and times when I am afraid of them.  I have never, so long as I know, been entirely indifferent to him; he is a man that one cannot ignore.

Marius.  I cannot ignore him either, but then I do not want to.  He is so different from my father; they might almost be from separate continents.  My father:  loud, boisterous, cruel, brilliant, thievish, brutally proud, lazy, gluttonous—_Marius:  _beautiful, quiet, shy, book-learned, proud in his own way, elegant, graceful, generous…Marius.  Even his name is beautiful.  And it seems, now that Marius is here, that my father's importance fades, and that it is possible for me to disdain him.

Azelma's hand is still bleeding.  I stepped into the room, and _Maman_ lifted Azelma off of the bed and gave a rag to me.

"Here," she said, "take care of her, she is cut.  I am going to put these coverlids on the beds.  Wait! first put on these things."

The father of the beautiful young lady left us a package.  Inside it were the two new coverlids and the woollen stockings and underclothes.  I take the black pair of stockings quickly, snatch them away from Azelma, who does not notice; she is so preoccupied with her hand.  Ladies wear black stockings in the winter, if they are not at parties.

"Here," I say, before she starts to suck on her cuts again, "let me tie up your hand."

The rag is unwieldy; I have to rip it lengthwise twice before it is thin enough to serve as a bandage.  I wrap the bandage about her hand, and I slip into a dreamland.  I remember _him_, the way my eyelids shook when he spoke gently to me, the way he nervously pushes strands of his beautiful dark, curly hair behind his ear, the way he stands so correctly in his beautiful dark suit.

My father interrupts me just as I finish tying the last knot around Azelma's hand.  "You go out!" he storms.  "It is queer that it did not strike your eye."

I do not know what he is talking of, and I do not care.  That indifference that I did not think I was capable of is slowly starting to seep deeper into my mind; it is a joyful thought.

He catches my arm roughly as I pass the door, and hisses to me.  "You will be here at five o'clock precisely.  Both of you.  I shall need you."

I leave, closing the door.  I would love to slam it closed, but it opens the wrong way, and then I do not want to enrage the man.  We step out of the Gorbeau tenement, and Azelma scampers off.  She has likely seen someone she knows at the end of the street.  Yes—there, Montparnasse, the dandy, the rogue.  I do not want to see him, to speak to him—not now.  Before he can look for me, I slip away, into one of the many Parisian alleys encrusted with the homeless, past the church of Saint Médard, down the Rue Moffetard, around in an abrupt turn, and towards the Seine.  The clock in the church tower strikes one as I walk; I have four hours for myself.  It is snowing now, and my feet are cold.  I have no shoes now; only the stockings are on my feet.

I find the Pont Neuf and cower down underneath it.  The bridge is a poor protector against the cold, but a bridge does not snow, and my feet do not freeze here.  The woollen stockings are a wonderful blessing; my legs, my thin legs, do not knock against each other with cold now. 

If only my father can get money from the father of that girl.  I know him too well to think that he would keep all of the money for himself; he is not such a man.  He wants to be rich, but one cannot be rich and leave his family in rags.  When we lived in Montfermeil, he clothed us well.

What would be the first thing that I would desire, then, if we had money?

I could go to a dressmaker.  I could demand to be one of the "best dressed" in Paris, and then I would return to find a beautiful wardrobe waiting for me.  A dark green silk gown, with Binche lace on the shoulders, a brown lawn dress with an embroidered bodice…petticoats and underclothing with Valenciennes lace stitched onto them…gauze gloves, lace gloves, silk gloves, elaborately buttoned gloves, embroidered and tasselled gloves.  A dazzlingly white gown with silk flowers about the neckline, an apple-green crape hat trimmed with gold and a pale blue silk hat.  Stockings—white, cream, grape, black—silk and cotton and lace…beautiful lace garters and elegant, new, buttoned shoes, of dark red silk, of dark green, black, pale blue, gold-embroidered, silver-buttoned. 

My hair…my hair would be clean, clean and in curls and braids, with ribbons in it.  I would bathe twice a day, and…and one day, I would pass by the old Gorbeau place just at the hour that Marius leaves for supper.  He would look up and see me; I would remind him faintly of someone he knew, but he would be dazzled by me.  He would see me and his heart would leap, and I would turn around to see him and our eyes would interlock.  We…we would stare at each other and slowly move together, and every other person on the street would melt away.  Neither of us would see anyone else, and we would be able to look nowhere else but at each other's eyes.

I would be pulled away by my father, or by someone else—or something would happen that would cause us to separate.  A fight could break out in the street, and I would be snatched into a fiacre by my mother or a friend of ours.  He would forget all about eating or other engagements and run after the fiacre, not thinking of anything else but to see me again.

That evening, thinking of nothing but him, I would escape from the theatre into the small courtyard, where there is a beautiful, illuminated fountain.  I would sink down onto the rim of the fountain and finger white gloves embroidered and buttoned in gold absently, remembering his face and the look in his eyes, a gaze a thousand times more vividly intense and loving than the stare with which he must have fixed upon Cosette when he saw her first. 

I would be magnificent, in a white dress with white roses in my curled hair, and there he would see me through the elegant fencing.  It would be a matter of moments for him to step inside softly, and then for me to know, instinctively, that he is there.  I would look up and rise to my feet, and our eyes would say everything.  As we did on the street, we would find ourselves drawn to each other, and then…then...our lips would meet, my world would turn upside down, and my heart would burst with love for him.

I open my eyes, and find that I am crying again, my sight blurred most unattractively.  I fall onto my side, bury my head in my arms, and try to stop the tears from falling, but in vain.  I raise my head three hours later and my sleeves are as wet as if I have just plunged them into the ice-cold river.

Slowly, I trudge back to the tenement.  Azelma runs into me outside, gnawing on a piece of bread.

"Ho!" she cries, "you have been outside all this while!  Your eyes are red and swollen from the cold."

"Where did you get that bread?" I ask her as we go inside.

"From Montparnasse," she brags.  "He took me inside a tavern and gave me this and some wine, which burnt and tasted like cat dirt.  He wanted to know where you were, 'Ponine."

I still have the energy to think up a lie, I am pleased to find.  "I looked for him and could not find him.  He was not at his usual place."

"No, he was not!  He was out with Brujon and Claquesous after he bought me this.  They were looking for Patron-Minette, I think."

"Oh," I say dully, pushing open the door to our _appartement_.  A hot, baked smell fills my nose, and I cry out.  "_Maman!"_

She is kneeling at the fire, stirring over three large potatoes with an iron stick, and both Azelma and I fly over to her.  Wrapping the potatoes in the cleanest rags we have, she hands them to us.

"I have cooked them with salt, mind!  They are good, but they are hot.  Do not burn yourselves."

We do not heed her warning.  It has been too long since we have had anything hot and good to eat.  I burn my mouth horribly with the potato, but I do not care; decent food is slipping into my stomach again.  Ravenously, I tear at it, at the good, burnt skin, and at the yellow, salty inside.  I am behaving like a mongrel, but the wolf tearing at my insides will be happy! he is appeased for now.

Feet clump up the stairs after we finish our elegant supper; it is _papà._  He lifts the latch and the door bangs open heartily.

"Good evening_, pèremuche_!" we cry in welcome.  Do you know, this is the first time in a long while that the sight of him fills me with glee.  He will soon have money for us, and with money, one can conquer the world.  Or, which is the same thing, I could conquer his heart.

It is strange.  I have real hope again for the first time since meeting Marius, real hope that could lead to something.  What, I wonder, will happen tomorrow? a week from today? in a year?  So many things can happen in just a few hours; what will the next few bring?  If it pleases any higher power to fight for love, they will bring us prosperity.  I hope—I hope…I love.  _I love him._

**_Read?  Review!_**

****

_Translations:   none in this chapter…well, there is always pèremuche, but that is not translated in the book, and from what I can gather, it is a name like "Daddy"…well, except lots more 1831-ised, and not so very non-Éponine.  However, corrections are quite warmly appreciated._

_And okay, so I lied:  this chapter does not feature the attack on Valjean at all; there is merely lots of foreboding.  However, ma petite thinks too much, so the attack on Monsieur Urbain Favre is saved for the next chapter.  Hopefully.  Unless I just write too much._

_Mes chères …er…reviewers…dang; how do you translate that into French? _

_La Pamplemousse—Thank you so much.  I try, really, very, very hard._

_Cecilia Carlton—::grins::  Thank you!  I _am_ so glad that she is in-character..._

_Sweet775—that is always loved and always appreciated…_

_Elyse3—Oh, dear, don't get me started on Marius…out of every single book I have read, person I have met, or movie I have seen, Victor Hugo's Marius is my idol, my dream, and my vision.  But randomly highlighted words?  I believe that _is_ just your computer…_

_Mlle. Verity le Virago—Yess!!  Cats to the ninth power and beyond!  (They have never forgotten their days of idols in ancient __Egypt__, you know)  I do hope I can help you stop hating Éponine…after all, she really is just a perfect, beautiful gamine who just needs a comb and a bath.  (I am KIDDING!)  And yes, Marius is hopeless…sigh…wait, I'm not a right idiot? ::stares oddly at self::  I'm currently sitting on the edge of my seat, hands clamped to the sides of the chair, happily ogling reviews, and looking quite a bit like Dobby, what with the green eyes and ear-waggling and all, and you say I'm not a right idiot?  ::shrugs::  Cool. ;)_

_Moon—oh, oh _yes_, have I read the book.  I have _devoured_ the book.  And Éponine is fascinating for exactly the characters that you describe, not only because she's been forsaken in love.  Really.  People have more to their characters than that!  Tsk.  I am very glad, though, that you were pleasantly surprised. Thank you!_

_Tathar—Thank you very, very much.  I try as best I can to keep the characters the same as they were in the original Hugo, which does include a rough, ugly Éponine, though I can't help but think that she is appealing _because_ no one has a reason to love her, and yet she has fallen into a strange, self-sacrificial kind of love with someone for whom she would do anything.  And yay!  Another Marius lover!  I'm _so_ glad that you think he is so 'correct' in this fic…that is a very good word to describe him…and I'm glad that I'm somewhat in keeping with Hugo during this whole thing.  Sigh.  Of happiness._


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